Once again on the road
Vision Quest or a trip to Mesa Verde?
10/1/17 12:12 PM
I am at Fairview café with fresh brewed coffee as good as Starbucks. My existential survivalist experience is simply an illusion. This is not Chaco; this is Yellowstone. I am going back to the campground will spend the day there preparing for tomorrow. Now that the sun is out it is a marvelous day even warm. It was not last night a low of near 40. A soaking dew last night but no rain. If only my wonderful inflatable sleeping pad would stay inflated all night. It lasts about three hours and I have to inflate it again. On the whole I got along well at Mesa Verde. I could have camped Monday night and pulled out in the morning, but the predicted low of 31 changed my mind. I got up early to see sunrise, I have to go back one more time to find a more perfect viewing location, but it was nice. I then went back to campground packed up tent and ended the camping experience. I went to some more sites, the museum, and hiked the Petroglyph Trail. I had booked a room at the same motel in Cortez from within my tent. No more man versus nature. It was odd to have Internet but no cell service. I went to visit my Aunt and cousins in Ridgway. Cell service at her house is about on par with the national park. Therefore the updates were about as sporadic as when I was driving. A bittersweet visit my uncle had died on September 1. He was my father’s last surviving brother, he had had a battle with dementia in last two years of his 92 years. Now I am on my drive home, once again stuck in Tucumcari. A very decent motel, I had beautiful drives in the Mesa Verde park and from Durango to Ouray nice drives on this whole trip. In New Mexico some heavy afternoon rains have made driving slow and cautious both going to Cortez and on the return trip. The Crossfire prefers dry pavement. It does excel at tight turns, high altitudes, and flying up and down the steep grades. I have another long drive today and tomorrow. Nancy would really like me to make it home on Saturday. I may make it as the Wilson Pickett sang so famously phrased it, In the Midnight Hour. I have enjoyed my vision quest, trip to Mesa Verde. I have developed some more philosophical, life centering thoughts. These may have to be posted in the recap when I am home. I can’t write while I drive, but I do a lot of thinking, meditating, and have a good time for prayers. –No more for a while.
Sunset behind the Sleeping Ute Moutnain Mesa Verde
The Drive -- Tuesday, October 10, 2017
Between Durango and Silverton
I am back; I arrived home between 9:30 and 10:00 on Saturday night. It
is the drive in part, not just the destination. Driving through new
country, revisiting old sites, the painful slow death of Oklahoma and
the Texas Panhandle. On Maher RD a county road all people in Elmwood
use to leave the Interstate I became as blind by oncoming headlights
as I have ever experienced. My eyes were tired by then. It was time to
get home. I pushed and extended the length of my daily long trip to
get home. Maybe, an indication I am not as young as I once was, but I
continue to ignore that condition. After being home, there followed
the unpacking, the realization of fatigue, and the welcome feeling of
being reunited with my wife. The welcome home feeling was followed the
next day by Nancy discovering I had left the blue ice packets in my
Aunt’s freezer. I had done so well with not losing anything essential.
Long drives are different; I no longer take paper maps. I study my
routes on my laptop the night before; I have access to maps on my
phone. One time I had Google maps and Apple maps talking to me at the
same time as verification that going the wrong direction was indeed
the best way to get to the motel. Of course, constant map and voice
reminders are unnecessary on a day when it says get on I-40 continue
on for 564 miles. A day to cruise, sometimes I search radio stations,
sometimes I play music, and sometimes I just cruise with the thoughts
in my head.
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